“Right you are, my dear Sherlock, and I’m
going to take her there as soon as I can. It’s
what I came East for.”

“Ain’t—­I mean, wasn’t
you Miss Lovering?” muttered Anderson Crow.

“Good heavens, no!” cried Miss Banks.
“Who is she—­a shoplifter?”

“I’ll tell you the story, Mr. Crow, if
you’ll come with me,” said Mr. Farnsworth,
stepping forward with a wink.

In the library he told the Tinkletown posse that Tom
Reddon had met Miss Banks while she was at school
in New York. He was a Chicago millionaire’s
son and she was the daughter of wealthy New York people.
Her mother was eager to have the young people marry,
but the girl at that time imagined herself to be in
love with another man. In a pique she left school
and set forth to earn her own living. A year’s
hardship as governess in the family of Congressman
Ritchey and subsequent disillusionment as a country
school-teacher brought her to her senses and she realised
that she cared for Tom Reddon after all. She and
Miss Gray together prepared the letter which told
Reddon where she could be found, and that eager young
gentleman did the rest. He had been waiting for
months for just such a message from her. The night
of the spelling-match he induced her to come to Colonel
Randall’s, and now the whole house-party, including
Miss Banks, was to leave on the following day for
New York. The marriage would take place in a very
few weeks.

There was a telegram at the livery stable for him
when he reached that haven of warmth and rest in Tinkletown
about dawn the next day. It was from Chicago
and marked “Charges collect.”

* * * *
*

“What girl and whose body,” it said, “do
you refer to? Miss Lovering has been dead two
years, and we are settling the estate in behalf of
the other heirs. We were trying to establish
her place of residence. Never mind the body you
have lost.”

* * * *
*

“Doggone,” said Anderson, chuckling aloud,
“that was an awful good joke on ’Rast,
wasn’t it?”

The stablemen stood around and looked at him with
jaws that were drooping helplessly. The air seemed
laden with a sombre uncertainty that had not yet succeeded
in penetrating the nature of Marshal Crow.